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Illustrator Franz Lang draws your daily struggles

Franz Lang is an Italian illustrator currently working and living in London. “I always had a passion for drawing. My mother recalls from when I used to paint on the walls of our apartment and how I yelled ‘I want to be an artist!’,” Franz laughs. When studying at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, Franz decided to attend an illustration course. “It was love at first sight.”

“I don’t really follow a process or a scheme,” Franz says of the work behind his bubbly, relatable drawings, which usually feature a female protagonist in a surreal setting, symbolising the struggles we all face, from depression to the pressures of social media, or sexual gratification in long distance relationships. “Sometimes a very strong idea comes and I can easily put it on paper (or computer) within a couple of hours," Franz explains. "Other times, instead, it takes days of sketching, trying and re-trying and drinking coffee (too much coffee) before I am happy with anything I draw. Nonetheless I would say everything starts from my sketchbook, that is always in my bag, wherever I go.”

Franz’ plant obsession occupies not only her work but her home. “It’s my own jungle,” she says. “I draw them, look after them and sometimes even talk to them. If it isn’t plants, it’s either faces, weird quirky animals or random shapes — and my sketchbooks are full of them.” Next up work-wise is “a couple of murals on two different houses” as well as a personal project which Franz says she “cannot wait to show”. “It will be a newly illustrated version of my favourite children’s book, the one my grandmother used to read to me (a very creepy one). It will be my Christmas present to my young twin cousins, if I can finish it on time for the print!”

It is obvious by the amount of times we write about Patrick Kyle that we have a major crush on his illustration style. Over the past few years Patrick’s aesthetic has shifted slightly, reducing his full colour digital works to more pared-back illustrations. Yet, the illustrator’s fluid line work means you always recognise a drawing by him.

Liam Cobb has been keeping busy over the past year to complete his small-yet-anecdotal collection of comics. Having previously featured his past publication Shampoo, his recent offering, and brilliantly named, Conditioner is filled with as much wit, charm and beauty as its predecessor.

Artist and illustrator Nathaniel Russell’s latest series sees him adopting the woodcut technique to create a series of the kind of propaganda posters you might find in a kindergarten classroom, a doctor’s office or recruiting station. “It’s like propaganda for the cosmic, wondrous and the human,” says Nathaniel. “They also serve as reminders for me personally to be better and do more to become the kind of person I want to be!”

Jack Taylor, a British illustrator and graphic artist working in Berlin, has spent the past couple of years progressing and defining his practice. We last featured Jack in 2014, where he gave us an insight into his day-to-day with book making, editorial illustrations and, most importantly, storytelling. He’s since worked hard to develop his method and realised what inspires him the most is travelling.

“The backbone of my illustration practice is really analogue printing,” Marc Hennes explains. “Doing linocuts taught me how to use the limited flat space you have as an illustrator, because once you cut then thats it – no correction. It also taught me how to simplify things, as it is such a rough technique.”

Ram Han’s candy-coloured illustrations depict a dreamscape straight out of Alice’s Wonderland, where nothing is quite what it seems. Sexual fantasies are interrupted by super-sized voyeurs; a texting girl is shadowed by a partner whose face has been replaced by a swirling galaxy; a table serves up a Furby which seems to have been skinned and taken apart piece by piece. “The surreal-ness always comes from the real stimulation,” the Seoul-based illustrator explains. “It could be based on emotions, or abstract ideas, but it has to come from my very personal experience. However the most important goal is to create something that leaves an impression, rather than something to be analysed.”